On This Day in Working Class History

On this day, 27 July 2017, bus drivers in Brisbane, Australia launched a fare strike where they refused to charge passengers for journeys in a protest demanding better pay and safety. Further fare strikes, as well as all-out strikes, continued intermittently over the coming weeks as workers pursued a 3.5% pay increase, rather than the 2.5% which had been offered over the following 3 years. The workers eventually agreed to a 2.5% increase plus a $500 bonus in September.More information, sources and map: https://stories.workingclasshistory.com/article/9915/brisbane-fare-strikeOur work is only possible because of support from you, our listeners on patreon. I...

On this day, 26 July 1956, over 21,000 workers on strike at 13 BMC factories in the UK against job cuts were joined by 12,000 Briggs Motors workers in Dagenham who walked out. Some of Oswald Mosley's fascists showed up to "support" the workers and urge an end to the strike at the Longbridge plant. They were given short shrift by the strikers who trashed their van. Video footage of the event is included in our compilation video of anti-Mosley actions around this time: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=REbkAxFbo38Our work is only possible because of support from you, our listeners...

On this day, 25 July 2011, 34 women workers, who promoted Angkor beer for Cambrew (a corporation partly owned by Carlsberg), went on strike demanding the payment of unpaid overtime and demonstrated in front of the company headquarters. Other Cambodian unions threatened to boycott Angkor beer, and some bars in the city stopped serving it during the dispute. One bar owner explained they wished to show support as "beer girls are among the most exploited workers in Cambodia". The workers agreed to suspend their strike on 4 August after the Phnom Penh deputy governor agreed to mediate between them and the company. A...

On 24 July 2019 ferry workers in Ketchikan, Alaska, walked out on strike as part of a contract dispute during the busiest time of year.Around 400 members of the Inlandboatmen’s Union of the Pacific rejected a new one-year contract which included a wage freeze. After nine days of strike action, employers agreed to a three-year contract including 3% pay increases and health coverage during the winter off-season.More information, sources and map: https://stories.workingclasshistory.com/article/7893/alaska-ferry-workers-strikeOur work is only possible because of support from you, our listeners on patreon. If you appreciate our work, please joi...

On this day, 23 July 1918, the Japanese rice riots began against high prices, a revolt up to then unparalleled in the country’s history in terms of scope, size and violence, which eventually led to the fall of Prime Minister Terauchi’s government. As well as multiple riots across the country, the revolt also involved strikes by miners, shipyard and factory workers.This movement is commemorated by our July T-shirt of the Month, made by a workers' cooperative supporting grassroots unions in Asia: https://shop.workingclasshistory.com/search?q=Rice+riotsOur work is only possible because of supp...

On this day, 22 July 2005, civil servants in the Kingdom of Tonga went on strike for 60-90% pay rise. The strike shut down the government and grew to include many other public sector employees and ending up being the most significant challenge to the island's monarchy in its history. The striking workers won their pay rise and forced the government to begin reforming itself. More information, sources and map: https://stories.workingclasshistory.com/article/9488/civil-servants-in-tonga-strikeOur work is only possible because of support from you, our listeners on patreon. If you appreciate our work, please join us and ac...

On this day, 21 July 1945, members of the Irish Women Worker’s Union staged a laundry strike demanding a second week of paid holiday, affecting many of Dublin’s hotels. Hospital laundry workers were exempt from the strike action. The strike lasted 14 weeks and ended in victory for the women, and the following year the government conceded to giving two weeks paid holiday to all workers. More information, sources and map: https://stories.workingclasshistory.com/article/9387/laundry-women-strikeOur work is only possible because of support from you, our listeners on patreon. If you appreciate our work, please join us and...

On this day, 20 July 1979, Native American political prisoner Leonard Peltier escaped from Lompoc Federal Correctional Institution, in California, with two other detainees, one of whom, Bobby Gene Garcia, was shot to death by a guard. Peltier, a leading member of the American Indian Movement, had been sentenced to two consecutive life sentences for the deaths of two Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) agents. He had been warned by fellow Native American prisoner Standing Deer (a.k.a. Robert Wilson) that there was contract on his life in the prison.Peltier’s original trial was riddled with inconsistencies and distortions. Fo...

On this day, 19 July 1984, the Dunnes Stores anti-apartheid strike began in Dublin, Ireland. Shop worker Mary Manning refused to check out a customer's South African fruit, as members of her union, Idatu, had voted to not handle South African goods. Manning was then suspended, and she and 11 of her colleagues went on strike in protest. The stoppage went on for three years, ending when the Irish government introduced a ban on South African products.More information, sources and map: https://stories.workingclasshistory.com/article/9108/dunnes-stores-strikeOur work is only possible because of support from you, our listeners...

At midnight on 16 July 2015, 140 workers at the state-owned Qulliq Energy company in Nunavut, Canada, walked out on strike demanding pay increases to keep up with rising prices. The strike, by members of the Nunavut Employees Union who maintained power lines and plants in the region, continued for three weeks until the local government offered them a new three-year pay deal which included pay rises of 2% in the first year and 1.5% in each of the subsequent years, which the workers accepted.More information, sources and map: https://stories.workingclasshistory.com/article/7352/nunavut-power-workers-strikeOur work is only possible because...

On this day, 15 July 1966, national rail operator British Rail scrapped a "colour bar" preventing Black workers from higher paid employment at Euston station in London. At the time the bar was supported by unions but a Black train guard, Asquith Xavier, campaigned to overturn the bar, eventually finding some support in Parliament. Xavier was a member of the Windrush Generation who moved to Britain after World War II. In 2019 many of those who moved with him were to be criminalised and deported by the government. Despite the success of his campaign, when Xavier was promoted he faced racist ab...

On this day, 14 July 1966 a group of US GIs were given the order to deploy to Vietnam. James Johnson Jr., David A. Samas, and Dennis Mora refused and became the Fort Hood Three: the most high profile US refuseniks to date. They were court-martialled and each jailed for five years. But they helped spark a militant anti-war GI movement which brought an early end to the conflict. Learn more about the GI resistance to the war in our podcast: https://workingclasshistory.com/podcast/e10-the-gi-resistance-in-vietnam-part-1/Our work is only possible because of support from you, our listeners on p...

On this day, 13 July 1917, thousands of workers joined a spontaneous strike in São Paulo following the police killing of a 21-year-old shoemaker, José (or Antonio) Martínez, at a demonstration against the high cost of living two days previously. The stoppage soon became a general strike, and workers could only be persuaded to return to work three days later after being given a 10% pay increase. More information and sources: https://stories.workingclasshistory.com/article/8481/s%C3%A3o-paulo-general-strikeThe strike wave at this time is commemorated by this T-shirt of the Month, made by a workers' co-operative and...

On this day, 12 July 1994, around 4,000 workers at Bridgestone-Firestone tyres in Decatur, Illinois, Akron, Ohio, Noblesville, Indiana, Des Moines, Iowa and Oklahoma City walked out on strike. Workers were protesting against the introduction of 12-hour shifts, pay and healthcare cuts, cuts to unemployment and injury benefits and a two-tier workforce. The workers, members of the United Rubber Workers union, joined 1,600 URW members who had already walked out at Dunlop in Alabama. To fight back, Bridgestone-Firestone hired 2,300 permanent scabs to replace the strikers. After 10 months, the strike was defeated, and many of the strikers were not rehired.More information, sources and...

On this day, 11 July 1989, a huge strike began of miners in the Soviet Union demanding better food supplies, cleaner working conditions, adequate housing, better care of the environment in mining areas, and rights to share management of the mines.In March, two brief strikes occurred at the Lidiieka and Kirov mines in Donbass, Ukraine. In July a much bigger strike began in both the Donbass and the Kuznetsky basin in Western Siberia. Within a few days, the strike had grown to 100,000 workers, and threatened to become a general strike when sympathy strikes began.Most miners had returned to...

On this day, 10 July 1949, Black Industrial Workers of the World dockworker activist Ben Fletcher died at his home in Brooklyn, aged 59.Fletcher was the leading organiser in Local 8 of the union, which organised the multiracial workforce on the Philadelphia docks in the early part of the 20th-century, and he was one of dozens of IWW members imprisoned during World War I.His funeral was attended by old comrades who praised his lifetime of activism, his sense of humour, his effectiveness as a speaker and more. Sam Weiner said:“Ben, we won’t forget the great part you play...

On this day, 9 July 1919, bartenders in Allentown, Pennsylvania, went on strike to impress on citizens the "horrors" of prohibition which was due to be introduced. There was a working class movement of hundreds of thousands called "No beer, no work" which aimed to stop prohibition with strike action. However this is the only actual strike we are aware of.We have produced items commemorating the No beer no work movement, using their original artwork, here: https://shop.workingclasshistory.com/collections/no-beer-no-workOur work is only possible because of support from you, our listeners on patreon. If you a...

On this day, 8 July, 1908, Black and white coal miners in Birmingham, Alabama, walked out on strike together against an attempt from bosses to eliminate the union. The strike grew quickly to a majority of workers in the area, including those who had previously been scabs. Bosses used evictions, armed thugs, scabs from the North, and forced convict labour to try to break the strike, and the press advocated vigilante attacks and tried to rouse white residents against the multiracial union. Eventually the Governor declared martial law and sent in the army against the workers, breaking the strike and marking a...

On this day, 7 July 1864, Filipino labour leader Isabelo de los Reyes was born in Vigan. He became a journalist and opponent of Spanish colonial rule, for which he was jailed and tortured. He was then deported to Spain and held in the infamous Montjuic Castle in Barcelona, alongside many anarchist political prisoners.In 1901 he was allowed to return to the Philippines, and he brought with him a library of books by socialists like Karl Marx and anarchists like Mikhail Bakunin. He founded the Unión Obrera Democrática Filipina, and helped organise several strikes.See our timeline of hi...

On this day, 6 July 1934, 800 workers from two plantations in Couva, Trinidad, demonstrated in front of the warden's office complaining at the lack of work. Violence erupted when police attempted to keep protesters away from businesses, to which workers responded by looting. Unrest spread to other plantations, two bosses were attacked and one company headquarters was stoned and set on fire. British colonial police arrested 12 demonstrators. More information, sources and map: https://stories.workingclasshistory.com/article/10627/trinidad-plantation-riotOur work is only possible because of support from you, our listeners on patreon. If you appreciate our work, please join us...